A new study from a bunch of psychologists claims that Women don’t like men with facial hair because they look aggressive. When I find those shrinks, I’ll kick their asses! But seriously, the word from the study is that facial hair makes men look older and more aggressive to women. Sure, I can attest to the older part. When I was a freshman in college, the only way I was able to buy liquor for everyone was because I had facial hair and the guy never carded me. There was no way that all my clean shaven, baby faced compadres could get close to the package store without raising suspicion. But aggressive?!?! Does Santa strike you as a particularly aggressive individual? How about Jesus? Hell, even Ghandi had a mustache!
Still, when shown a series of men, with and without facial hair, women almost unanimously chose the clean shaven versions of the men.
Ironically, men in the study seem to show that they feel facial hair commands respect from other men.
Here’s where the study is kind of full of crap:
They found 19 men with full beards – defined as six weeks of growth without any shaving or trimming – who agreed to help and photographed them as they were and when making an angry expression.
The beards where then shaved off and the men photographed again.
The pictures of the men – who were from New Zealand and Samoa – were then shown to more than 200 women, who were asked to rate them for attractiveness.Women from both countries rated the clean-shaven look as significantly more attractive, the journal Behavioral Ecology reports.
So… they weren’t doing any grooming and were making angry faces when they were bearded! Of course they’d look older and more aggressive. if I don’t trim my facial hair every few days, I look like a psychotic hobo.